Paint Your Shadows
by coldqueen
Summary: Unconnected drabbles featuring various characters. NEW, they see the world differently.
1. On The Breath That We Share

**Title:** Paint Your Shadows

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Jasper wants to tell her.

**Author's Note:** This was written for switzerland_100, a drabble contest on livejournal. I will be posting more drabbles from there, though I do not gaurantee all of them will be Alice/Jasper. I like to dabble in other pairings and this "story" will be a spot on for me to put all of them. As I post the drabbles the pairing the story is under will change.

**Word Count:** 100

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_...On The Breath That We Share_

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For many years Alice wouldn't let him say it. She didn't deliberately stop him, but with her abilities she often replied before he'd even spoke. It made the act of speaking superfluous. She didn't understand, without her human past, that sometimes it _needs_ to be said.

For several decades Jasper was relieved. He could manipulate emotions but he was rather uncomfortable with expressing his own. Eventually, though, he wanted to say the words. He watched Esme and Carlisle show their love through simple gestures and words. He watched Rosalie and Emmett demonstrate with alarming apathy for witnesses.

"I love you."

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Review, please.


	2. Close for Comfort

**Title: **Close for Comfort

**Characters:** Edward Cullen, Alice Cullen

**Summary:** This sudden awkwardness was entirely new to them.

**Word Count:** 100

**Prompt:** First Kiss

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They'd never had an awkward moment, forty years spent in perfect companionship. Their abilities, telepathy and precognition, staked the limits of their friendship without words being necessary and both obeyed the unspoken rules without incident.

It was on the eve of his wedding, the unending day sliding into night without pause, that the first hiccup of their friendship formed. Her enthusiasm overrode her instincts and she brushed her lips across his cheek without thinking.

They froze; years of friendship and etiquette brokering an uneasy silence. They didn't touch, never had.

Their abilities were amplified by touch; he saw too much.

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	3. All in Vain

**Title:** All In Vain

**Genre:** Book

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters:** Alice Cullen

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Summary: **From Mary Alice to simply Alice to Alice Cullen, they all have regrets.

**Word Count:** 100

**Prompt:** Wishes

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Mary Alice Brandon wishes that she'd never spoken of the things she saw in her dreams.

Mary Alice Brandon wishes that the nurses would give her an extra blanket because she gets cold in the night.

Alice wishes that she could remember how she ended up cold and alone in the forest.

Alice wishes that the baby deer that was her first dinner had never bounced its way into her clearing.

Alice Cullen also wishes that she'd known more about her new state of being because if she'd known it would never grow back she wouldn't have cut her hair.

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	4. Control

**Title:** Control

**Genre:** Books

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters:** Rosalie Hale

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Rating: **PG

**Summary:** She almost had a better track record than Carlisle.

**Prompt:** Blood

Word Count: 100

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She wanted him to be afraid. The scent of it clung heavily in the air of the room between them, almost visible like the smoke from his cigar. She'd set the scene with the ease of a woman who'd spent her entire life doing such things. All her life she'd been taught that appearances were everything, and this was no different. She would wear the dress that she was supposed to wear at their wedding and she would force him to join her in death.

Rosalie couldn't smell his fear, though, only the tempting taste of life at his throat.

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	5. Before She Could See

**Title: **Before She Could See

**Genre:** Books

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters: **Alice Cullen

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Rating:** PG

**Summary: **In the beginning, there was no Alice. There was only need.

**Prompt:** Blood

Word Count: 100

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She can remember hunger. It gnawed at the walls of her stomach, curling upward through her chest and raking its nails down the back of her throat. A beast that lurked behind her black eyes, uncaring of the nature of her prey; she hunted instinctively and without thought.

She rose to her knees, pressed her face to the sky, and didn't know what she sought. She was newly born; a tangled mess of need without anyone to temper her nature. She was a predator with the world at her feet and nothing to remind her of how precious life was.

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	6. Tabula Rasa

**Title:** Tabula Rasa

**Genre:** Book

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters:** Rosalie Hale

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Summary:** Some things leave an indelible mark.

**Prompt:** none

**Word Count:** 100

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There should be scars. It was only right and proper that there be some physical proof that she's damaged. Becoming a vampire took many things from Rosalie, and though there were other things that were a greater pain to lose, it was the lack of scars on her body that hit her most often.

There should be small puckered ones dotting her back, where the rocks from the alley bit into her soft flesh. Rough jagged lines along her torso where their nails cut into her skin. Half-moon indentations on her wrists and ankles.

There should be scars, not perfection.

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	7. Shiver

**Title:** Shiver

**Genre:** Book

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters:** Rosalie

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Summary:** Rosalie wasn't like the Cullens.

**Prompt:** none

**Word Count:** 100

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The Cullens were made of love, but Rosalie Hale was made of pity. Carlisle would not have chosen her to join their family had it not been clear that it was the only way she would survive. He'd taken Edward out of paternal affection and Esme because of visceral attraction. There had been no care to bind her to her 'father', just as none had existed for her in mortal life.

It was in that cold place, where love and affection should have resided, that Rosalie drew the strength to carry Emmett miles home. He was made of pity, too.

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Review, please!

_Author's Note: I'm very pleased to tell everyone that my drabbles (chapters four and five)_ Before She Could See_ and _Control _tied for winner at the challenge I write these for. I'm ecstatic._


	8. Anything

**Title:** Anything

**Genre:** Book

**Series:** Twilight

**Characters:** Carlisle Cullen

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Summary:** Carlisle thinks of his children and his control.

**Prompt:** Character-specific

**Word Count:** 100

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He spent centuries practicing his control, suppressing his natural needs and replacing them with compassion and gentility. Years and years of solitary existence and it took one fatally ill teenager to crack his precious control. _Just one_, he swore to himself as he sank his teeth into Edward over and over, _just one_.

It wasn't just one, though, it was another and then another, and one more. Rosalie and Emmett were impulsive decisions, spurred by pity and helplessness to do little else but save them. His control was in hand for them, just pushed aside.

Esme broke his control completely.

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Review, please.


	9. Just A Girl

**Title: **Just A Girl

**Genre: **Books

**Series: **Twilight

**Characters: **Jacob

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **It's difficult to give words to the difference between vampire flesh and human.

**Prompt:** Bite

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He had to be careful, his teeth weren't meant for the soft yielding flesh that shivered at the slight scrape of enamel. She was just a girl, nothing dazzling or dangerous about her. An anonymous distraction aimed at his dissatisfaction with the tableau of his life. Jacob didn't want to think. He wanted to feel wanted, to know that _he_ was the only person in her mind, to know that it was his hard body that she felt, and that it was his scent that lingered in the back of her throat. He soothed the slight pain with his lips.

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Review, please.


	10. Simple Man

**Title:** Simple Man

**Genre: **Books

**Series: **Twilight

**Character(s): **Charlie Swann

**Rating: **PG

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Summary:** Charlie tries, he really does.

**Prompt: **Twilight

**Word Count:** 100

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Charlie Swann wasn't a quiet man by choice. There were many situations where he wanted to speak, give volume to the thoughts in his head, but the second his lips moved the sentences laid out so clearly in his head broke down into puzzle pieces that he couldn't fit back together without more thought and concentration.

Charlie wanted to talk to Bella, tell her the things that had always been on the tip of his tongue. Two weeks was never long enough, phone calls never close enough, pictures never real enough; she was his world, but the words wouldn't come.

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Review, please.


	11. These Things

**Title: **These Things

**Genre: **Books

**Series: **Twilight

**Characters: **Sam Uley

**Spoilers: **N/A

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **He's a bad man.

**Prompt: **New Moon

**Word Count: **100

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Sam Uley isn't a bad man. Sam Uley wishes that people could be judged not by their actions but by the fiber of their character, because the things he's been forced to do since he became a werewolf are sometimes too gray to exist in a black and white world. Sam wants his pack to be one side of the fence and the cold ones on the other. Sam Uley isn't a bad man but when he first sees Bella curled up on the forest floor he thinks of Leah, brokenhearted and left behind, and thinks of leaving her there.

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Review, please.


	12. Contact

**Title: **Contact

**Genre: **Books

**Series: **Twilight

**Characters: **Jacob, Leah

**Spoilers: **Breaking Dawn

**Rating: **PG-13

**Summary:** She wants to feel wanted, just once.

**Author's Note: **This was written for paynesgrey. This is not written for my normal Twilight challenge community, thus the change in word count. It's set during Breaking Dawn...er...sometime.

**Prompt:** _The Killers_-"Bones"

**Word Count: **457

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It was in the early mornings, curled up in a threesome puppy pile with _his _warmth at her back and her brother's in front that reminded Leah of the things she couldn't have. If they were still wolves then it wouldn't matter, she'd see him as her alpha and nothing else; but though they were wolves when they curled up at dawn, they weren't when they woke up at noon. Seth was always first to wake, his youthful exuberance had him rolling away and into the forest before she or Jacob had even opened their eyes. Seth didn't think anything of leaving his sister and leader curled up intimately and alone, no matter how mature his transformation left his body his mind had yet to catch up.

Leah knew what it was like, though, to have Jacob's morning "glory" pressed against her back and his breath rustling the hairs on the back of her neck. He may still be caught up on Bella but Leah had worked damn hard at getting over Sam. Switching packs had helped, not hearing the thoughts of the wolves around her, but having Jacob's thoughts in her head was slightly better and a lot worse. She'd thought loving a man who loved someone else and couldn't help it was bad, but loving a man who could help it and didn't was worse.

Jacob stirred behind her, his arm around her waist tightening briefly before relaxing again. The soft hairs on his forearm tickled her chest where it rested and she struggled not to breathe too deeply lest she make him aware that she was there. In dreams she didn't know who he thought her to be, maybe Bella, maybe someone else, but in her dreams it was only reality. She knew he was there, her leader who she followed out of the embrace of the familiar and into the cold hold of vampires; Leah knew who held her in the shadows of morning and dreaded waking.

There hadn't been anyone for her since Sam. There were no rushed trysts when no one was around, no furtive touching under the all-seeing eyes of family and friends. There were no inside jokes or long-winded stories with no real purpose other than just to hear the other talk. Just once Leah didn't want to be defined by werewolves and the effect they'd had on her life. She didn't want imprinting to be the ultimate form of love. She didn't care to have a man in her life that she couldn't see around, couldn't think around. She'd be grateful just to have a warmth at her back, the soft rub of his skin against her own, and the uncomfortable weight of his bones on hers.

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Review, please.


	13. What You Are

**Title: **What You Are

**Genre: **Books

**Series: **Twilight

**Characters:** gen

**Spoilers:** n/a

**Rating: **G

**Summary: **They see the world differently.

**Prompt: **Wolf Pack

**Word Count: **100

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You lose all sense of privacy when you join the pack. There is no thought that is hidden, no feeling unfelt, and no sight not seen. They can be alone but never lonely; individual but connected always. In wolf form it's worse, when even their thoughts begin to join together. You're stripped down to the basic instincts of _sleep, play, hunt, kill. _If they're not careful those same instincts can slide over into the human side of life, filtering the way they see the world. They're simple people in a difficult situation, seeing the world through (dangerous) golden brown eyes.

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Review, please.


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